Boston Symphony Orchestra Concert Programs, Season 54,1934-1935
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SYMPHONY HALL, BOSTON HUNTINGTON AND MASSACHUSETTS AVENUES Branch Exchange Telephone, Ticket and Administration Offices, Com. 1492 FIFTY-FOURTH SEASON, 1934- 1935 CONCERT BULLETIN of the Boston Symphony Orchestra INCORPORATED Dr. SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, Conductor Richard Burgin, Assistant Conductor with historical and descriptive notes By Philip Hale and John N. Burk COPYRIGHT, I935, BY BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Inc. The OFFICERS and TRUSTEES of the BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Inc. Bentley W. Warren President Henry B. Sawyer Vice-President Ernest B. Dane Treasurer Allston Burr Roger I. Lee Henry B. Cabot William Phillips Ernest B. Dane Henry B. Sawyer N. Penrose Hallowell Pierpont L. Stackpole M. A. de Wolfe Howe . Edward A. Taft Bentley W. Warren W. H. Brennan, Manager G. E. Judd, Assistant Manager [1021 ] Old Colony Trust Company 17 COURT STREET, BOSTON it Executor • Trustee Guardian Conservator • Agent ^Allied with The First National Bank of Boston 1022 [ ] Contents Title Page ........ Page 1021 Programme .......... 1025 Analytical Notes: Bach The Passion According to St. John 1027 A Passion Performance at Leipzig 1042 Text (in English) of Bach's St. John Passion 1048 Announcement Bach-Handel Festival . 1044-1045 " " To the Friends of the Boston Symphony Orchestra . 1064 The Next Programme ....... 1065 Special Concert Announcements . 1066 Teachers' Directory ...... 1067-1068 Personnel ....... Opposite page 1068 1Q [ 23 ] Cbantiler & Co. TREMONT STREET AT WEST cAn Exceptional 'Ualue^ A New RINGLESS Chiffon Stocking BY IJanity tyair Spring Colors . They have everything you MACAROON need for smart, fashionable SUNBRIGHT appearance. Perfectly knit- SUNDARK ted of the finest quality SUNDIAL THRUSH silk, and cleverly reinforced TOWNWEAR for serviceability beyond SMOKE your fondest expectations. We predict that when you see them and feel them you cant resist laying in a season's supply at this price. All silk heel, plaited sole and toe. Street floor. [1024] ^mm FIFTY-FOURTH SEASON, NINETEEN HUNDRED THIRTY-FOUR AND THIRTY-FIVE Twenty-second Programme FRIDAY AFTERNOON, April 19, at 2:30 o'clock SATURDAY EVENING, April 20, at 8:15 o'clock Bach-Handel Festival Bach THE PASSION according to St. John Evangelist and solo tenor Dan Gridley Jesus and solo bass Keith Falkner Maid and solo soprano Olga Averino Solo contralto Marie Murray Peter and Pilate Royal Dadmun Harpsichord, Putnam Aldrich Viola da gamba, Alfred Zighera Viole d'amore, Jean Lefranc, Albert Bernard Organ, Albert W. Snow BACH CANTATA CLUB, Mrs. Langdon Warner, Conductor [First performances at these concerts] Because of the nature of the music, it is requested that there be no ap- plause; also that any who may be unable to stay until the close, leave during the intermission (the afternoon performance will end at approxi- mately 4:15; the evening performance, at 10 o'clock) [ 1025 ] To announce The Openins f our New Bridal Shop. We've enlarged our quarters on the Second Floor, Main Store, and we're better prepared than ever to plan, advise, select and shop for your trousseau and all the odd and sundry incidentals thatperplexthe bride-to-be. And speaking of trousseaux, we've just unpacked some very charm- ing new wedding dresses, rang- ing from $16.75 to $165 in price. Write or phone our Bridal Consultant, Miss Ann Rummelhart, for an appointment. Telephone HANcock 9ooo. THE BRIDAL SHOP — SECOND FLOOR MAIN STORE [1026] THE PASSION ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN By Johann Sebastian Bach Born at Eisenach, March 21, 1685; died at Leipzig, July 28, 1750 The " Johannespassion " * was the first of five Passions which have been attributed to Bach. Among them, this and the " Matthaus- passion " only are complete and authentic beyond dispute. Each, ac- cording to a custom during Bach's Cantorship at Leipzig, was per- formed at the Good Friday Vesper service of the St. Thomas Church one year at the St. Nicholas Church the next. The St. Matthew Passion was first performed at St. Thomas' in 1729; the St. John Passion was probably Bach's inaugural score at Leipzig (other than the cantata * A performance of this Passion was announced on April 16, 1897, as " First time in Boston." There was a chorus of fifty from the Handel and Haydn Society, a " string orchestra and flute," Mr. H. G. Tucker the conductor, and no church or auditorium specified. A performance Good Friday, 1899, at the Second Church, Copley Square, with what seems to have been more numerous participants, was announced as " the first public performance in America." This is refuted by Raymond Walter in his history of the Bethlehem Bach Choir, which he states to have sung the St. John Passion in the Pennsylvania town, June 5, 1888, under Dr. Wolle — " the premier complete rendition in America." The assertion was supported by a letter from Carl Zerrahn, then conductor of the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston, to the effect that at that time the society had given only a few fragments of the work. There is no avail- able record of a full concert performance in Boston. EARLY AMERICAN SONGS Adapted and Edited by Harold Vincent Milligan — Each volume issued for high and low voice THE FIRST AMERICAN COMPOSER. 6 songs by Francis Hopkinson, net including the first American song, " My days have been so wondrous free " 1.50 (Schmidt's Educational Series No. 212a-b) COLONIAL LOVE LYRICS. 6 songs by Francis Hopkinson 1.25 (Schmidt's Educational Series No. 213a-6) A WASHINGTON GARLAND. A volume of songs by Francis Hopkinson, dedicated to George Washington. Contains facsimiles of Hopkinson's ded- ication and Washington's letter of acceptance 1.50 Songs by Francis Hopkinson, published separately MY DAYS HAVE BEEN SO WONDROUS FREE. The first American song (2 keys) .40 O'ER THE HILLS (2 keys) .45 PIONEER AMERICAN COMPOSERS. Containing early American songs by Pelissier, von Hagen, Swan, Reinagle, Taylor, Carr, Hewitt and Wilson Book I (Schmidt's Educational Series No. 256a-6) 1.25 Book II (Schmidt's Educational Series No.288a-b) 1.25 FRENCH-CANADIAN SONGS Adapted and Edited by G. A. Grant-Schaefer — For medium voice (Texts in French and English) Sainte Marguerite I Hear the Millwheel Down to the Crystal Streamlet Red River Boat Song The Nightingale's Song St. Lawrence Boat Song The White Rose Tree Price complete, $1.25 net Also published separately The ARTHUR P. SCHMIDT CO. 120 Boylston St. [1027] which he submitted as candidate to the post of Cantor of the St. Thomas School, February, 1723) . It is conjectured that this Passion had its performance at the St. Thomas Church, Good Friday, 1723,* a fort- night before his formal installation. With this score, Bach turned away from the instrumental music which had so long occupied him at Cothen, and devoted himself to the music of the Protestant Church ritual. A not inconsiderable part, but still only a part of his duties at Leipzig was to provide and perform, not only such scores as the Passions, the Magnificat, the Mass in B minor, but a new cantata for each Sunday and each Holy day. There must have been little short of three hundred cantatas in all, of which one hundred and ninety are extant. * Spitta assumed that the performance of the St. John Passion in the " Nikolaikirche " on Good Friday of 1724 was the first, and Parry supports him: " It is true there is no proof posi- tive of the date, but if the arguments in favor of its having been 1724 are somewhat intricate and unconvincing, the arguments in favor of any other date are not forthcoming." Arguments in favor of 1723 have been forthcoming since Spitta's time — namely by Albert Schweitzer, seconded by Charles Sanford Terry. The earlier writers rest their case on the fact that Bach was not officially installed in his position as Cantor until May 31, 1723, at which time Good Friday had passed. But the later writers point out that Bach's appointment to the Cantorate at Leipzig (actually made April 22) followed a vacancy of nearly a year, that Bach was prob- ably sure of the position from January, and seems to have composed the Passion during that winter in Cothen, as if with a spring performance at Leipzig in mind. The Town Council would hardly have omitted in that year the repetition of a custom firmly established by Kuhnau in 1721, merely because their new Cantor, with a freshly written Passion in his port- folio, had not been given the formalities of installation. The Council is known to have made this very exception on another occasion. In 1729, a vacancy occurring in the New Church, they arranged for one of the candidates to provide the Good Friday music. LAMSON & HUBBARD Care For Your Furs? YES-WE DO FUR Our Fur Storage STORAGE covers all risks Rates 3% on reasonable valuation SUITS • DRESSES • SPRING COATS 304 Boylston Street, Nr. Arlington...Kenmore 5350 1028 [ ] This astonishing output may not have been so onerous to this most fertile of composers as the meagre and ill-equipped performers which were allotted to him for its production. Leipzig could not have exacted, could not have more than dimly appreciated the great music that he gave them. When Bach, with two strokes of his quill inscribed before the title of his St. Passion: (" John's "J. J." Jesu Juva") , he was in reality addressing the score, not to a particular congregation, not to a miserable group of half-starved choir boys and bungling " town pipers," but simply and with whole sincerity to his God, his heart overflowing with music of love and praise. It might be questioned whether any composer since could have so addressed himself entirely without affecta- tion, or thoughtless formality. "Like all music," wrote Bach in 1738, listing the principles of accompaniment for his pupils, " the figured bass should have no other end and aim than the glory of God and the re-creation of the soul." Taking up the St.